CushWake director Anne Spencer published the third-annual healthcare real estate report for the firm’s Healthcare Practice Group. CushWake director Anne Spencer published the third-annual healthcare real estate report for the firm’s Healthcare Practice Group.

ORLANDO—Hospital growth has continued to rise in Central Florida. That’s one of the findings of Cushman & Wakefield’s 2016 Central Florida Medical Office Report, the only report of its kind addressing healthcare real estate in the region.

The report offers a comprehensive analysis of on- and off-campus medical office inventory in hospital clusters in Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Lake counties. CushWake director Anne Spencer published the third-annual healthcare real estate report for the firm’s Healthcare Practice Group.

“The healthcare industry continues to play a more significant part in the overall economy,” Spencer tells GlobeSt.com. “It now directly employs nearly 15 million people and has caused the pool of available medical office space to tighten.”

According to the report, hospital growth has continued to rise in Central Florida. The area is now seeing both on- and off-campus medical office construction with about 100,000 square feet of new space in the pipeline.

CushWake notes Central Florida’s inventory of for sale institutional medical office buildings has been limited. Most of the recorded medical office building sales have been smaller, single-tenant buildings or medical condos acquired by owner-users.

Meanwhile, direct vacancy of medical office space in the Orlando MSA has steadily decreased since 2011, falling 2.8 percentage points to the current level of 8.5%. Year-over-year leasing activity increased a dramatic 104% through the fourth quarter of 2016.